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Back in the fifties , the U.S. started detonating atomic bomb underground to fix the fallout , both radioactive and sociopolitical , unleashed by aboveground testing . Hundreds of feet of tilt spring a tidy barrier for the next 40 years as countries continued to bomb the subsurface .
Now a atomic startup require to eat up a little reactor underground , using depth as a second-stringer for the long ton of concrete involve to safeguard aboveground reactor . The companionship , Deep Fission , signed a deal on Tuesday with data center developer Endeavour to build 2 gigawatts ’ worth of subterraneous nuclear ability .
As part of the deal , Endeavour seat in the startup , though Deep Fission declined to disclose the terms when contacted by TechCrunch . The ship’s company previously raised $ 4 million last August .
Nuclear startups are having a moment , driven in part by the growing energy need of data heart running compute - intensive workloads for AI software program . Google haspaired up with Kairosfor 500 megawatt ’ worth of reactors , while Amazon hasturned to X - Energyfor around 300 megawatts ’ worth . datum center operator Switch inked a dealwith Sam Altman - punt Oklofor 12 gigawatts of electricity . Meanwhile , Meta is taking a dissimilar tack , inviting nuclear developersto submit proposals .
Most atomic startups specialize in designing small modular reactor , which promise to lour cost through aggregate production techniques . Their compact step are also appeal to developers , who opt to maximize the act of servers on their properties .
Deep Fission ’s reactors would be lowered on cable down a 30 - column inch , one - mile recondite borehole . The nuclear reactor are pressurized - water designs , a common approaching used in everything from nuclear submarines to massive world power plant . A steam author copulate with the reactor would call on heat into steam , which would be fed to the airfoil via pipe running the length of the borehole . Any maintenance would require hauling the reactor to the surface , which the company says would take “ only an hour or two . ” Deep Fission is targeting between five to seven cents per kilowatt - hour , less than half whatLazard estimatesnew atomic power costs today in the U.S.
The deal is the latest in a flurry of agreement that , if complete , would usher in a nuclear world power renaissance in the U.S. Deep Fission ’s design is to switch on its first nuclear reactor in 2029 , which is in line with other companies ’ design .
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Also like most of its match , Deep Fission has yet to receive a licence from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission . The inauguration begin the process in March . In the past , it could take days to receive approval , but a new law set an 18 - calendar month timeline for the NRC to give little modular reactors a thumbs - up or down . So far , Kairos is the only ship’s company to havesuccessfully made it throughthe process .
